Fleet and the scars

[6262]

I used to read a lot of BFG rulebooks (couldn't play at the time) and one of the things I seem to remember is that the Scars were the Astartes too beat when it came to naval engagements. Can anyone point me to more information about how the chapter interacts with its fleet assets?

 

Does every brotherhood have elements of the fleet? Is it a particular brotherhood? I'm leaning towards Scars as my next project and I'm curious as to what a force of fleet based Scars would look like that might be more engaged in naval shipboard fighting than strictly speaking bikes or the competitive build of the force. Thanks for any input.

[Johanhgg]

Fleet actions of the scars is present in the books ”scars” and ”path of heaven” -the Horus Heresy novels. Other then that i have no idea about more info, nor can i recollect memories of ever have read about that Aspect of White scars warfare.

 

During the Horus Heresy the scars had dedicated breacher squads, as the other legions, for, amongst other things, boarding actions.

[6262]

Thanks for the book mentions I'll check them out.

 

How would you create Breachers in the marine dex? With Deathwatch it is baked in but I'm not sure there is a good corrollary in the base marine book. I'll probably build some terminators to get a bit of the space hulk / ship board combat focus.

 

Do you know of any good examples of perhaps just marine boarding actions? Or the description of what usually goes into them?

 

It seems like Breachers, Terminators(Cataphractii or Tartaros), and perhaps a Dreadnought of some flavor are in order.

 

I'd assume the weapon of choice for Intercessors working in those conditions would be Auto-bolters.

 

I'm trying to think of any other things that would be characterful and all having a hard time coming up with ways to feel speedy but maybe that comes from always advancing.

 

More to mull over.

[Johanhgg]

Thanks for the book mentions I'll check them out.

 

How would you create Breachers in the marine dex? With Deathwatch it is baked in but I'm not sure there is a good corrollary in the base marine book. I'll probably build some terminators to get a bit of the space hulk / ship board combat focus.

 

Do you know of any good examples of perhaps just marine boarding actions? Or the description of what usually goes into them?

 

It seems like Breachers, Terminators(Cataphractii or Tartaros), and perhaps a Dreadnought of some flavor are in order.

 

I'd assume the weapon of choice for Intercessors working in those conditions would be Auto-bolters.

 

I'm trying to think of any other things that would be characterful and all having a hard time coming up with ways to feel speedy but maybe that comes from always advancing.

 

More to mull over.

I love breachers in 30k. In 40k i use my breacher models as company Veterans with stormshields. I have ultra Marines and salamanders aside my scars and both those armies have a lot of breacher-squads.

 

Amongst many books the ”Crimson fist” from Horus heresy comes to mind, that book really incorptates boarding actions with breacher squads, imperial fists vs iron warriors in the deep void.

 

White scars breachers is mentioned in “the path of heaven”

 

My zone mortalis (typically a boarding action) consists of breacher squads, terminators and Dreadnoughts. My salamanders love that setting with lots of flamers in the narrow corridors of a boarded vessel :)

[Prot]

I used to read a lot of BFG rulebooks (couldn't play at the time) and one of the things I seem to remember is that the Scars were the Astartes too beat when it came to naval engagements. Can anyone point me to more information about how the chapter interacts with its fleet assets?

 

Does every brotherhood have elements of the fleet? Is it a particular brotherhood? I'm leaning towards Scars as my next project and I'm curious as to what a force of fleet based Scars would look like that might be more engaged in naval shipboard fighting than strictly speaking bikes or the competitive build of the force. Thanks for any input.

 

All I can add is in Scars (Horus Heresy) there is an excellent moment there with a fleet battle underway. This may be a spoiler.......

 

 

Often I kind of phase out during a ship battle scene, but to be honest there's this one great scene where the Wolves are under attack and then a mass of Chaos Alpha Legion ships basically surround and mimic the movements and formations of the White Scars.

 

The Scars know they are out gunned. They have a unique trick though. Apparently many of the Astartes fleets are altered somewhat by their Primarch. 

 

So this scene unfolds with the Scars kind of giving the Alpha Legion the appearance of being sluggish to respond. They even give up some damage, and take a few hits, making it all convincing. Shots are exchanged, but no real losses are taken.

 

All this time they are really measuring the Alpha Legion fleet and the Alpha Legion do a very good job of moving in very measured ways, and making sure the White Scars cannot over load them...all the while they are pushing outward, putting damage on the White Scars.

 

Then the moment happens and you get the explanation for it. The fleet is slightly less 'shooty' than their brothers' fleets. In some cases it might be the distance of lance firing, or the full offensive output of a ship, however this is the cost for making the entire fleet exceptionally fast.

 

The Alpha Legion is pushing in deep. The White Scars suddenly slam forward full tilt. 

 

Apparently the speed at which they can do this takes seconds to minutes. A fully qualified equivalent ship in the Imperial Navy would take 20-30 minutes to hit these speeds with these maneuvers.

 

The White Scars start to see the Alpha Legion panicking as they find it impossible to pursue while keeping their carefully maintained formations.

 

The semi-blockade is broken and all the while it turns out the White Scars have been examining the actions of the apparently 'larger' fleet of the Alpha Legion and they noticed a good section of the formation isn't presenting proper warships. (A very Alpha Legion thing to do to present a larger fleet than they had available).

 

With the weakness found, the majority of the White Scars fleet surge into that weak spot, leaving a lot of the offensive Alpha Legion vessels unable to properly defend, or pursue.

 

At that point the White Scars are more interested in not allowing the Alpha Legion to delay them any further (larger part of the storyline here), and they do not engage, but simply out run the Alpha Legion.

 

 

That is the gist of it. I found the whole area of that story to be well told, and one of the more interesting cat and mouse space battles I've read in the Heresy. (Chris Wraight of course).

 

But aside from entertainment it did show the alterations the White Scars as a Legion have made to their craft, and how they've gone about basically hiding these changes and capabilities from other Legions. 

[6262]

@prot I'm with you on often finding the naval engagements told in Black Library to be...dull.  Which is sad because I've always found the imagery of the combats riveting.  I actually picked up a copy of Scars and started listening to it today.  I'll keep my eye out for that part.  Sounds like a good engagement.  

 

@Johanhgg The breachers shields in 30k almost made me go Imperial Fists at one point but I just couldn't stomach Dorn and the legion's mentality.  Though strangely I've always been drawn towards Pedro Kantor and his Chapter.   I've never read Crimson Fist so I'll add it to my queue for when Audible updates again.  

 

Thanks for both chiming in.  I've taken stock of what I can repurpose from my Deathwatch into Scars and it isn't quite boarding action based as it is mostly the stuff from Shadowspear; but at least it will let me get my toes wet making up a few infiltrators before I take the Cataphractii models that have been sleeping in my pile of shame since they came out in plastic.   In general my play group is pretty relaxed so I've got two questions about terminators in the Scars.  Does it matter which type you run (Stock standard, Cataphractii, or Tartaros)?  Or does the ability to advance and charge make it mostly a wash?  Finally can teleporting terminators be relied upon to reach combat the turn they hit the ground?

[Johanhgg]

@prot I'm with you on often finding the naval engagements told in Black Library to be...dull. Which is sad because I've always found the imagery of the combats riveting. I actually picked up a copy of Scars and started listening to it today. I'll keep my eye out for that part. Sounds like a good engagement.

 

@Johanhgg The breachers shields in 30k almost made me go Imperial Fists at one point but I just couldn't stomach Dorn and the legion's mentality. Though strangely I've always been drawn towards Pedro Kantor and his Chapter. I've never read Crimson Fist so I'll add it to my queue for when Audible updates again.

 

Thanks for both chiming in. I've taken stock of what I can repurpose from my Deathwatch into Scars and it isn't quite boarding action based as it is mostly the stuff from Shadowspear; but at least it will let me get my toes wet making up a few infiltrators before I take the Cataphractii models that have been sleeping in my pile of shame since they came out in plastic. In general my play group is pretty relaxed so I've got two questions about terminators in the Scars. Does it matter which type you run (Stock standard, Cataphractii, or Tartaros)? Or does the ability to advance and charge make it mostly a wash? Finally can teleporting terminators be relied upon to reach combat the turn they hit the ground?

Yes, the terminators can be relied upon to reach combat with the help of strategems and such:)

[6262]

I've got a few days prepping and planning under my belt...also of watching what White Scars youtube videos I could come across; and while I enjoyed them mostly. It seems like they're all "BIKES BIKES BIKES" or "this is competitive 40k!" which is fine and all but I don't think that it gives a good sense of what can be done.

I've probably done more painting than I've done in months and I've posted what I've gotten up to. They're not done; but hey its progress. Do you have any recommendations on places to improve brush control because it feels to me that they still feel sloppy ;p

Some of them I used the contrast paints to test out and other I just said no to them. I'm not sure that I'm a fan of contrast for white. I haven't used it very much so I could easily be applying it poorly as well. Have you used the GW Contrast paints much? Do you find it is just easier to paint everything off-white and pick out details with regular paint?

Edited April 12, 2020 by 6262

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

I've got a few days prepping and planning under my belt...also of watching what White Scars youtube videos I could come across; and while I enjoyed them mostly. It seems like they're all "BIKES BIKES BIKES" or "this is competitive 40k!" which is fine and all but I don't think that it gives a good sense of what can be done.

I've probably done more painting than I've done in months and I've posted what I've gotten up to. They're not done; but hey its progress. Do you have any recommendations on places to improve brush control because it feels to me that they still feel sloppy ;p

Some of them I used the contrast paints to test out and other I just said no to them. I'm not sure that I'm a fan of contrast for white. I haven't used it very much so I could easily be applying it poorly as well. Have you used the GW Contrast paints much? Do you find it is just easier to paint everything off-white and pick out details with regular paint?

Aggressors seem like a logical choice for boarding actions. Their close range abilities are really nasty and they are quite durable. Also why not an Ironclad dread? I could see that being horrendous during a boarding assault.

What's up with that rhino? Seems like hes got no one to transport. The painting on those looks pretty good overall. Got any better photos? You mentioned contrast but the photo quality makes it impossible to see how well contrast works with whites.

[6262]

I've got some stuff to build and I was trying to paint with what was already built up so I could figure out how to get the guys looking the way I wanted to. I've got some other Shadowspear stuff (more infiltrators and suppressors) plus a big squad of Terminators

 

Also I'm not sure what to build with the Rhino. Tactical, Vanguard/Sternguard Veterans, or some other old marine infantry. I'll probably be building some Breachers as well but I'm not sure anyone is shipping bits right now so I'll be holding off on those.

 

Sure I'll update the image with a bigger one.

[6262]

Well I've built everything that I can initially repurpose from the Deathwatch projects. Done a bit of basecoating and am starting to put in the reds. I hope to test the oil washes that were mentioned in a few other threads once I can locate a few. Should be a good test for the quiet nights ahead for the next several weeks.